A Mystic Shade of Blue
by Personification of Fluff
Summary: A piece of MirSan fluff, a one shot, to brighten up all those who are having a bad day and try to remind us all of our own favourite color.


A Mystic Shade of Blue

**AN:** I did homework all day yesterday. I was happy. I got caught up. But for some reason, I don't feel good. The PoF does not feel good today. How out of it am I? Well, I'm talking about myself in third person. So I wrote this yesterday, but I am posting it today in hopes that a one-shot full of nothing but fuzzy, feel good fluff, will help anybody else who is a having a bad day, week, or week or year (though I sincerely hope that this isn't the case--a year of bad days? Ew.).

Iggy, if you read this, I think I may have fibbed a little two nights ago. Writing fanfiction is not my way of life… writing _fluff_ is. I think I have actually evolved to learn to live off of fluff.

**Name:** A Mystic Shade of Blue

**Author:**Personification of Fluff

**Rating:** G

**Summary:** It's a one shot. Does it really need it? It's a piece of WAFF.

**Setting:** Post-Inuyasha, therefore it contains spoilers up to episode 132… as the rest is all imagination.

**Disclaimer:** Yes, I own this piece of fiction. No, I do not own the characters. If I did, then Miroku would no doubt be based off of one my equally perverted yet charming friends and I would have hooked him in before any rabid fan-girl could claim him. But, as he's not my character, I will just have to settle for joining in the mad rush for trying to own his soul.

**_---/----_**

How could I have said that?

Even now, I don't know what I mean when I say 'that'. Am I referring to the first thing… or denying it all?

It could have been wonderful. I could have actually _smiled_ at Miroku at said something equally witty, but instead I had claimed to have conveniently forgotten everything. What was I? A two year old child? Shippo came up with better excuses than that!

Everything has always been so simple before Miroku. Everything had been obvious and clear-cut, and I didn't have these emotional debates with myself. The world was less dangerous. It was simple. There were no shades of grey. There was good and there was bad.

But ever since I had met him, everything had been confusing. My days were filled with turmoil. I had learned about the shades of grey. Miroku was a shade of grey. I hated him _so_ much when he groped me—didn't he get the point? God! Sometimes I was worried I might actually give him internal bleeding! But then he said something intelligent and I felt respect for him, or he did something nice and I was proud of him, and then… well, given his nature when we first met, he would normally just go and grope some other lady and I would go back to hating him. Then he'd notice and grope me, and I would hate him so much it made my heart hurt.

Hate. Love. Pride. Respect. Anger. Jealousy. How can one man make me feel so much?

How can I keep denying him, denying everything I've learned since I met Miroku? It's not fair to him. It's not fair to me. I should have told him. As soon as we got off of that damned mountain, I should have told him it was all a lie, but I kept my mouth shut. How many times? How many times had he risked himself to save me?

Oh, I have plenty of excuses for being a liar. I can point to Naraku, to Kohaku, to his kazaana, and as much as I hate it, I can point to my own fear.

But all those things—save that fear—they're gone now. Kohaku is alive and well, recuperating in the hut near Kaede's. The kazaana has disappeared, with no ill side affects—thank god. Naraku is dead, six feet under, deader than a doornail. We took all the pieces we could find of him and burned them, and then scattered them over every stream we found on the way back home.

No, not really. I wish we could have done that, just out of sheer vindictiveness and paranoia. But Naraku really is dead.

So why haven't I told him the truth yet?

I can think of lots of excuses, but none of them are the truth. None of them hold water. I can tell myself that I hate him, that I hate his perversion. I can tell myself I was just a passing fancy, but if that was the truth, then why is he still here, when he doesn't need to be? If I were him, I would have gotten myself pleasantly drunk and then enjoyed the company of women, just like he used to when something good had happened. I can tell myself that he'll cheat on me, but I can't be certain of the future. He's a monk, besides, so he should have some self-control. I felt myself smile as I thought that I would just have to give him a good reason not to lose his self-control.

I don't need to confess anything to him. All I want to do is clear my conscious.

I stopped bathing. I dressed myself, leaving my hair down to try faster in the warm summer sun. Miroku wasn't even trying to peek on Kagome or I when we bathed anymore. Not that off the top of my head I can ever _really_ recall him watch us bathe. There were just… unfortunate circumstances which always led to him being around me naked in the water, and then my weapon—whatever was close enough—smacking him on the head.

Miroku was alone. He had been alone often since we had killed Naraku. He was quiet, too. Only Kagome and Inuyasha had seemed giddy since Naraku died. He sat cross-legged with a scroll across his lap. He seemed to be reading, but he wasn't moving the scroll at all. I mentally teased myself that he was reading a sutra and was too enchanted to move it.

"Houshi-sama?"

He looked up at his name, his deep blue eyes confused, but warming when they saw me. He lifted the scroll from his lap and stood up, a small smile on his face. I dislike his small smiles. They often seemed patronizing, and yet they still made my heart leap. His hair fell into his eyes, and he quickly brushed them away with the back of his hand. He was still wearing the cloth around his hand, I noticed. I wasn't the only one who was paranoid about Naraku coming back.

"To what do I owe this pleasant arrival, Sango?" he asked politely, gesturing for me to enter and sit down. I entered, but I didn't sit down. He arched an eyebrow, aware of how tense I was.

"Do you remember Mount Hakakurei?" I asked.

He sat back down, smiling, this time deliriously. "How can I forget it? I've never been so sure that I was going to die." I opened my mouth to direct the conversation, but when he spoke, he took my words away with no more than a gentle, directed gaze square into my eyes. "And yet my thoughts weren't of me at all, but of you. I was so afraid that you would die as well, Sango. The thought terrified me."

Damn him! How could he be so flippant about displaying his emotions?

I felt myself blush, recalling all the times he had nearly died trying to save me. Those mystic blue eyes stared at me with such intensity it was distracting and infuriating all at the same time. "I know why it scared you. I… I would be scared too, if you were going to die, Houshi-sama." My heart raced in my chest. I wished it would slow down. It was quite distracting. "I wish that you would never have to make such a sacrifice like that again, Houshi-sama…"

He smiled, lifting his hand and opening the cloth around it to reveal his hand. "I don't think we have to worry about that, Sango. The kazaana is gone now. My life is my own again…"

"Yes, Houshi-sama," I said, trying once more to direct the conversation. He beat me again, and again his words distracted me.

"Except for you, of course." He tapped his fingertips against his chin. "There's still the matter of you, Sango. After all, I had asked you to bear my children, and be my wife…" His voice warmed and his eyes twinkled as he gazed at me. "Or had you conveniently forgotten that, Sango?"

I felt my cheeks burn. Oh, he was so infuriating, sometimes! I had half a mind to walk out of the conversation at that point. Instead, I did something I had rarely done before. I let my anger go. I slipped away from me, to someplace unknown, and I felt myself being enveloped by those blue eyes, every action and movement I made registered, treasured, and evaluated under his gaze. "You knew."

Miroku laughed. The corners of his eyes wrinkled when he laughed. I wondered if, after all the fighting we had done side by side, I had the same cares. I doubted that he had developed them just because he was a few years older than I. "Sango, you are capable of doing many things, but you are still bound by your body. You could no more grow wings and fly than you can lie." His laughter settled as he became serious once more. "What I didn't understand was why you had to lie."

I couldn't respond. My tongue wouldn't work. I felt petrified. I just stared at him.

Miroku slowly continued. "I debated it with myself, and I could only come up with one reason for your blatant avoidance. I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps you were as frightened of such intimate feelings… as I was."

"You… you were scared, Houshi-sama?"

His face was frank. I was glad for it. If there had been any sign of a smile, I would have felt like he was lying to make me feel better, and any sign of pity in his voice would have made it feel like he was belittling me. "Sango, it's not everyday you meet someone so wonderful, and care for them so greatly, that you would be willing to lay your life down for them without a moment of hesitation."

I smiled shyly. "You're never scared, Houshi-sama…."

"Really? Then you must not have been there when I asked that same girl to marry me. All I could think of was what I would do if she turned around replied no. What if I was just a friend? What if she had someone else, someone she was avenging in secret? What if she didn't care for male company? What if all those moments I treasured had been gilded with passing time, and she really did hate me? After all the women I had met and asked to bear my children, Sango…" He paused, checking to make sure I wasn't about to throttle him for bringing them up. "Sango, all their combined rejections would have been nothing if you had even hesitated for one second to accept my proposal."

It was becoming very hard to breathe. I couldn't respond. All of this was too much! I had only wanted to rectify something I had said out of foolishness, and he was now pouring out his heart to me…

"And yet since that proposal, since we killed Naraku, she has barely talked to me. I can understand why. So much as happened so quickly, but I worry, deep down, that perhaps her acceptance was another lie, a very good one, meant to soothe the conscious of a man who would be dead in a matter of months."

"What? How can you possibly think that, Mi… Houshi-sama?" His face had been filled with such hope when my outburst almost meant the disrespect of calling him by his name. When I corrected it, it vanished, though he still looked happy. I lowered my voice and leaned back. "I was perfectly serious."

"Sango… are you afraid now?"

"No." He stared at me, and my bravado fell away. It was like it had just caved in. "I'm terrified."

"Naraku is dead. You don't have to call me that anymore, you know. You don't have to keep yourself distanced in case one of us dies." I was silent, and he regarded me coolly. Miroku leaned over and took my chin in his elegant hand, raising my eyes to his. "Sango, I was serious when I had asked you to marry me. If you don't believe me, I'll ask you every day until you believe me when I tell you that I want you as my wife."

I shook my head. Why did he have to get so close? He smelled so nice, and his hands were warm, and the softness of his voice was enticing. "That's not it."

"Then help me to understand, Sango."

"It's a matter of respect, Houshi-sama. That's why I don't call you by your name."

His eyes widened. We had been talking about two different things. When he had thought my comment through thoroughly, he frowned. Obviously he disagreed with it, as the burrowing his eyebrows together suggested. "There's more to it than that, Sango. There's more to life than respect, Sango."

"What else is there other than that, Houshi-sama?"

"How about passion, Sango? Haven't you ever felt the urge to cry to the heavens, to run like the wind?"

"I sometimes feel the urge to scream, so I usually challenged someone to a duel and throttled them. If fighting one person didn't help, there were a few others who were always willing to fight me."

Miroku sighed and shook his head. "That's not the same, Sango. And you're lying again. I'm talking about the urge to do something so insane, so radical, that you feel it humming through your whole body, Sango. Your heart race picks up, and so does your breath, and you feel a bit like your swimming. Everything is languid, and yet so intense that it feels like everything is going at the speed of light." He leaned closer, his hand slipping from my chin to the back of my neck, entangling in my hair. "I hope you have, Sango, because I'm feeling it right now. Don't ever call me that again, Sango. I have a name."

"I know you do." His fingers were almost painful as they pulled my hair, and yet, it was actually a little pleasant. I felt my skin tingle when his breath touched me, and the air was so thick I think I actually stopped breathing. I leaned in closer, and I watched his eyes close. I followed his example.

"So does this mean you two _are_ really going to get married?" Shippo demanded, jumping between us. We jumped apart like caught teenagers, but Shippo was unaware of how close we had been to kissing. He looked positively delighted. "Wait until I go and tell the others!" He scampered off, and I chased after him, planning to stop him before something disastrous happened.

Miroku reached out and grabbed my wrist. He was still breathing heavily. I think he was going to blurt out something foolish, like saying that he loved me, but I smiled at him, and he fell silent.

"I love how we talk, you know. We always say things in such round about ways, so it means we get to enjoy each other's company. Promise me that we'll always talk like this, so that I can get to keep listening to your voice, and so that I can never be scared away by anything direct."

He smiled back at me, releasing my wrist. "I promise, Sango."

"Then I promise to always call you by name, now that I have your permission. Right as soon as I catch Shippo!"

Shippo screamed and kept running.

Once upon a time, the world was simple. The world was easily divided. I knew who I was, what I was, and my duties in life. My heart was easy to read. Once upon a time, the world was boring. The world was black and white before I had met Miroku. Now I get confused. I lie to try and avoid disturbances. Nothing is simple. Now there is laughter and warmth, and I doubt I'll ever know my heart. Now there is adventure. More than anything, now there is grey… there was pink, and purple, green, and yellow…

And a mystic shade of blue.


End file.
